In this paper, we document the experience with donor-funded projects in Uganda, identifying both factors that contributed to their success and those that hindered their effectiveness.

Key findings on disbursement problems:

We find that the problem of low or slow disbursement is associated with funds procedures and conditions attached to specific projects, including:

counterpart funding requirements;

conditions for aid effectiveness;

deficiencies in procurement planning; and

failure to follow the conditionality and funding guidelines on procurement procedures.

The ranking of these problems varies from project to project.

Capacity constraints:

Weak project implementation capacity (capacity constraints) implies that attention needs to be focused on building the capacity of technical staff, especially in those projects with elaborate procedures such as the World Bank IDA/IBRD projects.